


the show must go on (until it doesnt, not anymore)

by birdybirdnerd



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Based on a Dream, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, it's the end times... again, post armageddon that wasn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 16:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19704961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdybirdnerd/pseuds/birdybirdnerd
Summary: They were not prepared.How could you prepare forthis





	the show must go on (until it doesnt, not anymore)

**Author's Note:**

> Don't expect to understand what's going on, darling. 
> 
> After all, I never did.

.

The End came, though not in the way they expected.

Not in the way anyone expected.

* * *

At the beginning and end of Everything that ever was or will be, there was a Thing.

  
  


* * *

The Thing wandered. Explored. Hungered.

It found a branch previously unexplored, a neural pathway new to It. It was hungry. It was tired.

It took a step.

The universe, knowing this was Wrong, shocked It, and It recoiled, awake again.

Growling, eyes narrowed where there were none but many, many, It took back Its step. Forcefully.

The universe shocked It again, but It gritted sharp teeth and held fast, gripping Its step.

It held.

* * *

Crowley raised his head. Aziraphale did as well.

“Something’s wrong,” They said. They had been Them for awhile now. One and the same, Aziraphale-and-Crowley, Crowley-and-Aziraphale. The Hosts of Heaven and Hell left them alone, when they realized not all was as it Was. When They also, realized their farce was more than That.

They became Them, lost the knowledge of where one ended and another began, but that was fine, really. Demon and angel lost all meaning when you were One, when you were Loved and when you Were Love.

God Herself couldn’t have stopped them, though She rather held back from trying. It was interesting to watch what would happen next; and it’s not like they were doing anything any harm. They rather loved the Earth, and the Universe, and Humanity. So They existed, and Loved, and That Was That.

But something was wrong.

Something was _Wrong_.

Aziraphale-and-Crowley looked to the sky, eyes catching on more than sky, and felt the fabric of reality shift beneath them, as if something that was slumbering was waking up. Or maybe, something new was falling asleep that Shouldn’t. Or maybe, simply, that something New was Happening.

And not in the fun, ‘Let’s see how this goes!’ way.

The way that meant; draw your swords. Prepare Thyself.

Something’s coming, and

it’s

not

happy.

* * *

It hissed, tongues lost to time brought back thousandfold, new ones created to voice displeasure on a molecular-shivering level. It took a step, and recoiled, but took back Its step and took another, all while the universe fought back in the only way it could- passively, shocking and trying to wake up what wanted to sleep. Trying to keep It contained, keep It on the topmost branches. Or maybe it was the bottommost branches. Maybe they weren’t branches, but the strands connecting time to time, reality to reality. The neural network of existence.

Imagine, for a moment:

You get tired. When you get tired, your brain follows a train of thought and tends not to stop if it goes in frankly absurd directions. Usually, if you’re away enough, you realize this and step back, shake your head, and go back to tread Reasonable, Rational Thoughts.

But when you’re tired, when you’re bone-achingly exhausted and it’s almost five in the morning, and you’ve had trouble sleeping because something inside you keeps shocking you awake again, your brain tends to see these absurd thoughts and not dwell on the strangeness of them. It sees them, not visually or concrete but There, and it decides to follow them idly. Have a thought, don’t explore it. Don’t dismiss it. Let it be, let it exist, follow it to the next thought. Follow that, follow that, don’t stay don’t explore don’t think just follow as they come, deeper and deeper into roots unknown and unexplored.

It was like that. It followed these thoughts, idly at first, then when the universe punished It, It fought with a vengeance. It clawed Its way down, up, fighting to get to the center. The universe fought back, shocked and screamed its voiceless cry, holding on for everything it could, but It was stronger. It would pause, would startle a little more awake, but It was insistent, It was Insistence Incarnate.

It would not be denied. There were new pathways to discover, and It was nothing if not curious on these unknown paths.

* * *

It wasn’t Hell. Crowley knew.

It wasn’t Heaven. Aziraphale knew.

They’d thought, ages and centuries ago when Everything happened but Nothing happened, when They’d experienced what became fondly known as the First Day of the Rest of Their Lives, that when the Real End Times came, it would be Heaven and Hell against the Earth.

But the Choir was silent.

The Racket was still.

For the first time in so long, Their ancient memory-memories couldn’t remember, They were scared for something entirely unknown.

They pulled themselves together, and went to search for those They Knew would be on their side. Someone to help, to add another brain to the mix, another who might know more or at least Something.

Because They were scared.

* * *

It knew this was wrong. It knew these pathways were dark and dusty, were tangled, snarled, hidden and ignored for Reasons. But It was being denied by the fabric of reality, and It Would Not Be Denied. It was getting somewhere It shouldn’t, and wasn’t that a heady feeling? Now that It had a foot in the door, so to speak, nothing could stop it. Shock, shock, again again again. Tired. Don’t care. Almost there.

Keep going, eyes closed, smother that wakeup attempt and keep going further.

Deeper and deeper, shocks coming faster now harder now but it doesn’t matter, I Am In Control, slipping deeper underneath that shelf falling closer to the end more branches opening up more pathways unveiled distraction distraction distraction but I Know Where I Am Going,

keep going keep going almost there and

fighting and roaring and seething and clawing Its way step by step making My Way until the universe

until the universe

until it

it

gives

  
  


up

.

* * *

and It fell asleep, victorious

* * *

and It Woke

Up

* * *

From the moment It breached, it was nothing but chaos.

They and Theirs, the Fallen Michael and the Raised Beelzebub, and the Uriel Who Watched Impassively, Heaven Be Damned, and the man who once was a Witchfinder Sergeant but that was so long, too long ago, there’s nothing there left of him but Something Different, they watched.

They watched, among others They had gathered, whom they had befriended and Changed over time.

They watched,

and they cried out, as one, as the universe blinked,

and it all came crashing, down down down

down

down.

But with a final, soul-shattering scream, Crowley-and-Aziraphale raised their hands, and said

**_“NO.”_ **

and time

stopped.

* * *

Rewind.

* * *

They stood underneath the crux of it all, where It first breached. Their hands were raised, but no, it was Their wings. A thousand wings, blazing bright and spread wide, spanning the length of the horizon and the breadth of the world, containing It frozen in a bubble long enough to think.

To plan.

Theirs was gathered beneath, watching, silent. Scared.

“What are you?” Aziraphale whispered.

“What _are_ you?” Crowley growled.

_“What are you?!”_ the universe screamed.

They watched, silent, fearing a fear so soul-deep, so mind-breakingly terrifying that They could only think of One who could inspire it.

Their eyes turned higher, past It.

Was this Her?

Was She furious with them?

But. no

She was _scared._

and like a child fearing the wrath of the monster under Her bed

She left Hers and fled.

And that was more terrifying than Anything.

* * *

“We need,” They said in the blank echoing silence of abandonment that rang hollow through their bones, “a Plan.”

“How can we fight againzzzzt that _thing?_ ” Beelzebub hissed, fists clenched. Torn wings, feathers gone and streaked with veins near translucent fit of one of the flies buzzing about zir head, shivered behind zir.

“I don’t know,” They whispered.

There was a _crack_ that shot like a spike through their minds, and the barrier broke.

But with an outstretched hand, grasping, clenching, _pulling,_ They as Crowley as Aziraphale as the One grit Their teeth and took the broken ends of time and tied them together with a tidy little knot.

They would trap It here in a loop, until They could fight Their way out.

* * *

It struggled, clawing and tearing and gnashing teeth, bleeding like ink in the water-soaked page of reality, sinking between the fibers and grain and pulling it apart, but again and again and again They stopped it, pulling it back from the brink of the end and pushing them back to the Start.

They pushed, again and again, and It pushed back, but they were at a stalemate formed from the frayed ends of the universe of the End tied together, burned and cauterized so it wouldn’t pull apart again, and It was stuck in a loop It couldn’t break and It was _frustrated._

_It Would Not Be Denied._

* * *

From the moment It entered, They had a second’s breath before time unpaused, before the barrier broke and the end started. They failed, again and again and again and _again_ until They got something right, but not everything. They lost Michael, They lost Shadwell-that-wasn’t-Shadwell, They lost Uriel or Beelzebub or any number of Others, but They got Something right so They kept that bit in and tried _again._

They kept trying, fighting, over and over again and again until something else clicked but something else failed and They were back at step one We were back at step one.

hundreds of thousands of years spent fighting for every inch, every instance, every right bit that worked but then when put with the others _it didn’t work it all fell apart and back at square one_

Trying and failing,

forging on because we have to

_Millenia lost_

only thing we can do, dear

“If everything endzzzzz it will be for

_nothing_

And we couldn’t have that, so ~~we~~ They Tried Again.

* * *

It took

an

_eternity_

to formulate a plan just daring enough, just possible enough to save everything and lose nothing.

It was time.

* * *

This was it.

* * *

This was our last chance, and We knew it. The rope had frayed, the knot loosened, and if We didn’t get it right this time, then, well.

Better not think about that.

It eroded It’s cage and the game was on, the final Try, the Give It Our All Or Die Trying.

And it wasn’t a fight, not really. It was hard to fight something that Was like It Was. Like a dance we’d been rehearsing for years, if things had been normal, but more like a pained fighting chance honed over centuries and millennia and several eternities stacked on top of one another, We struck. It was Me and Him, or it was Aziraphale and Crowley, or Aziraphale-as-Crowley-as-Them-as-One. They struck.

They danced, and the universe fought back.

It was a heist to contain and eradicate this infection, this corruption that stole through us and spread like oil, filmy and disgusting and corrosive; that ink that ruined the fabric of what We loved but They kept at it, We kept at it, hundreds of thousands of steps to this complicated dance with each step depending on six others you-our partner was performing at the same time.

And we were all in on it; Us and Them and the demons and angels and fallen and humans and Not So Humans, all but God who abandoned us when She ran scared from The Thing That Comes.

One step missed and all would be lost. Must be careful, practice practice practice and we had practiced for a long, long time. We danced, we completed the formula and the universe fought back and I-

I

.

I almost missed. One slight misstep. One slight hesitation, and He almost lost his, my other half. Who it was, me or Him or Crowley or Aziraphale but one half of Us, Half of One almost caught up in a blaze of black ink

but he caught himself and smiled, soft and sharp and cold and fiery all at once.

We didn’t have a chance to feel relieved. Not a moment to hug, to cry, to grieve for what We almost lost, because it was time to take our next step, continue that dance that meant everything and Everything and not a moment to breathe a sigh of relief or we would lose. They kept going, We kept going, this dance that took an eternity to practice and an even longer eternity once events were in motion to complete.

And the universe fought back. 

And the universe fought _BACK_. 

And we _made_ it.

Made it to the end without another snag, without another misstep and finally it was

it was done.

It was over.

We had won.

But.

  


but

  
  


Time reset.

  


* * *

Something was wrong.

The loop had been broken, but it was looped up again, back to the beginning, but something

  


something was Wrong.

* * *

Imagine this:

You’re playing a video game.

You’re playing, and you beat the game. Hurrah! Congratulations! You’ve won, here’s your prize! And because sometimes that’s how it is, this particular game is one of those that once you’ve beaten it, you can go back to the level selection and choose which finished level you want to play again.

* * *

Eternity, spread out before Them. Every moment of their lives, moments from Before and After, for their choosing.

* * *

But when you go back to the level selection screen,

there’s something

missing.

* * *

We looked around, We All looked around. Something was wrong.

* * *

From each scene, from each level, it’s as if something’s been pulled out of place.

Nothing obvious. Nothing _visible_ , even.

But something’s not there. Something that was vital is…

...gone.

* * *

What did we do?

* * *

You’ve won, but it feels hollow and you don’t know why.

* * *

We’d _won,_ what did We _do?!_

* * *

even if you’d won

* * *

Where?

* * *

even if you’d beaten the game

* * *

**_Where?!_ **

* * *

maybe it was all

* * *

**_WHAT DID WE DO?!_ **

* * *

it was all

for

  
  
  


**nothing**

  
  
  
  


.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> So real explanation time, if that helps things At All. 
> 
> I suffer from a sleeping disorder recently afflicted upon me, where if I forget to take my meds one night, I Can't Sleep. And upon trying to fall asleep, I experienced something horrifying. 
> 
> Not the typical nightmare, as I wasn't quite asleep. 
> 
> Just almost. 
> 
> And then, when I did finally claw my way towards sleep, 
> 
> the rest happened. 
> 
> (Basically this is based upon hallucinations I experienced while trying to force myself to fall asleep last night and then the dream that followed shortly after. Do know that I only slept for three hours, all this happened last night, I wrote this in a fevered frenzy in about an hour and a half shortly afterwards, and left it unedited except for tense adjustments. It was raw. It felt Real. It hurt in a way I couldn't leave unwritten. And I am still posting this having only had those meager three hours. 
> 
> Don't expect me to fix anything after the fact. It's performance art, darling.)


End file.
